Garage/Theater Match Goes Into Overtime

Proposals from two finalists lived to fight another day to win the right to run downtown’s next cultural hotspot .

That was the outcome of Monday night’s New Haven Parking Authority meeting held at the authority’s headquarters at 232 George St.

The authority heard the results from a seven-person selection committee charged with evaluating the vendor proposals for what to do with the Crown Street Garage’s ground-floor commercial space.

The committee didn’t end up choosing just one proposal for leasing the space. Well, three members did: They concluded that a proposal from the non-profit that runs the College Street Music Hall to open a smaller music venue made the most sense. But four other members argued that both proposals seemed equally good: the CSMH one, and one for a series of small theater performance and rehearsal spaces run by a consortium of the Shubert Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, and Albertus Magnus College. Those four members voted for both, which kept the competition alive for one more round.

So now the final decision will rest with the six-member board of the parking authority, which plans to vote during a special meeting to be held in two weeks.

Monday night’s meeting was the penultimate public consideration of the two different visions for what should come next in the currently empty nearly 10,000 square-foot, publicly owned commercial space on the ground of the Crown Street Garage at the corner of Crown Street and College Street.

The Shubert-Long Wharf consortium and the New Haven Center for the Performing Arts (NHCPA), which runs the College Street Music Hall across the street, were the only two applicants to respond to the parking authority’s three-month-long Request for Proposal (RFP) process to breathe new life into a vacant spot that once held Bopper’s and Clarence’s Court Jester, among other memorable nightspots.

At the end of September, representatives from both entities made their initial pitches to the parking authority and the selection committee. The College Street Music Hall group proposes building a smaller, 450 to 900-person-capacity version of the successful music venue that it already runs across the street. The consortium proposes dividing the cavernous space into four distinct areas: a 200-seat theater, a 90-seat cabaret, a rehearsal studio, and a lobby.

On Monday night, the various members of the selection committee publicly evaluated the proposals before formally recommending both to the parking authority, which will pick between the two at an upcoming special meeting.

Deputy Economic Development Director Steve Fontana, who served along with Parking Authority Executive Director Doug Hausladen as staff to the selection committee, solicited feedback from the different committee members on each of the eight criteria the group used to evaluate the two proposals. The committee members ranked the proposals on a scale of one to five for each criterion of consideration, with one being the worst score and five being the best.

Best Use?

The first criterion: The proposed reuse of the property.

Selection committee member Tony Bialecki, a former parking authority chair, gave the Long Wharf-Shubert consortium a 5 for the proposed conversion of the space into two theaters and a rehearsal studio.

“Clearly Long Wharf speaks for itself,” he said, ​“as well as the Shubert, in terms of what they bring to the city over the long term and the quality of what they do.”

Avi Szapiro, the chef and owner of the downtown restaurant Roia, agreed with Bialecki. ​“I think the consortium has great merit in what they’re proposing,” he said. ​“The idea of having that kind of theater in conjunction with Albertus Magnus would be of tremendous value to the city as well as tremendous value to the students.”

Recognizing his own personal bias towards theater over rock concerts, selection committee member and local attorney Jim Whitney said that downtown has plenty of popular music venues as it is, but would benefit greatly from a theater-cabaret-teaching studio as proposed by the consortium.

Speaking up for the College Street Music Hall’s proposal, Szapiro said that NHCPA’s proposed reuse of the property also struck him as quite strong.

“They have proven what they can do at the College Street Music Hall,” he said.

“Given what they’ve done across the street, it’s a pretty strong use of the property,” Bialecki added.

Selection committee member and local realtor Dallas Davis said the operators of the College Street Music Hall have proven their financial responsibility, savvy marketing, capable construction and rehabilitation abilities, and cultural viability through the remarkable financial and musical success they have achieved in just three years at the larger venue.

“I second Dallas,” said selection committee member Jackie Buster.

Selection committee member Otis Johnson, Jr., who serves as the city’s fair rent commissioner, raised one concern about the College Street Music Hall proposal being too successful. Speaking as a downtown resident, he said that College Street and Crown Street and George Street are already clogged with traffic whenever the Shubert Theatre or the College Street Music Hall host a performance.

“We’re trying to create a walking community,” he said. If the College Street Music Hall applicants follow through in bringing 2,500 new music fans downtown every week, that might only exacerbate what are already heavily trafficked city streets.

Best Chops

The second criterion: Each applicant’s experience and qualifications in developing similarly sized projects.

“Long Wharf and the Shubert are outstanding at what they do,” Bialecki said.

Bialecki, Johnson, Buster, and Szapiro also all gave the College Street Music Hall group fives on this issue.

“The proof is in the pudding,” Szapiro said about College Street Music Hall’s success.

The third criterion: The ability of each respondent to complete the proposed project in its entirety.

“They have a proven track record and history,” Szapiro said about Long Wharf and the Shubert. ​“They’ve been there for years. It’s important to take solid facts into consideration.”

Buster said she has great confidence that the College Street Music Hall group can not only complete its proposed project in its entirety, but can do so almost immediately upon receiving the bid. The College Street group has suggested that it will be able to finish its renovation of the property within a few months of signing a contract, while the Long Wharf-Shubert consortium said that it will need a year to adequately fundraise for its proposal.

Best Financial Deal?

The fourth criterion: Projected revenues to the city and the New Haven Parking Authority.

“I am giving them a two,” Buster said about the theater consortium’s proposal. She said she is wary of the lower number of people that the consortium’s plan will bring downtown every year, an estimated 51,000, which is under half what the College Street Music Hall proposal suggests that its theater would attract on an annual basis.

Whitney also gave the consortium a two on this criterion, citing the group’s request that the parking authority waive a $60,000 signing fee as well as an annual additional payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) based on the city’s value assessment of the property. That PILOT would have to be paid on top of a minimum $6‑per-square-foot triple net monthly rent, to be negotiated with the parking authority after the awarding of the bid.

Parking authority staff attorney Joe Rini said that the parking authority could not waive the PILOT for either applicant, due to state law. However, whichever applicant wins the bid can appeal to the city for a PILOT abatement.

After the meeting, John Fisher, who heads the nonprofit that owns the Shubert, said that the consortium is more than willing to negotiate with the parking authority on any of the financial terms included in a potential contract. Long Wharf board chair Laura Pappano also said that the consortium plans to invest nearly $6 million in the rehabilitation of the existing property, which is triple the amount that College Street Music Hall estimates it will need to invest to build out its proposed music venue.

The fifth criterion: The alignment of each proposal with the city’s development goals for downtown; namely, to increase pedestrian traffic, parking revenue, business for existing shops and restaurants, and to bolster the Elm City’s brand as the cultural capital of Connecticut.

Bialecki and Johnson both ranked the College Street Music Hall proposal at a five. Bialecki also said that he thought the consortium’s project fit well within what the city wants downtown to look like.

Public Support & Consideration

The sixth criterion: Community satisfaction with the respondents.

In its written application, the consortium included letters of support from the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and from Gateway Community College. The College Street Music Hall group submitted letters of support from over a dozen downtown restaurants, bars, and shops.

Buster said that she had trouble comparing the two in this regard. She said that the College Street group definitely submitted more letters of support, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate the community’s unhappiness with the consortium proposal. It may just mean that the College Street team did a better job at getting out the vote.

The seventh criterion: Any special considerations that must be resolved in order for each proposal to be a success.

Buster gave the consortium’s proposal another two, citing the financial waivers that the group requested.

“I liked a lot of things about this proposal,” Whitney said about the consortium, ​“but I wouldn’t be in favor of it if they were getting the degree of subsidy that they’re asking for.”

The eighth criterion: References.

“I’d say both sides had excellent references,” Buster said.

And The ​“Winner” Is …?

After an hour of reviewing the committee members’ takes on the two different proposals, the members voted on which to recommend to the parking authority board for final consideration and contract negotiation. Each committee member could recommend both proposals, one proposal, or neither proposal.

Three of the committee members — Buster, Davis, and mayoral Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes — voted to recommend just the College Street Music Hall proposal. The other four committee members voted to recommend both the College Street group’s and the consortium’s proposals.

“For me, it comes down to dollars and cents,” Buster said, summarizing one of the key parts of several selection committee members’ support for the College Street Music Hall group’s proposal. ​“They’re ready to go now without any special considerations.”

But, since each applicant received at least four votes of approval from the committee, the parking authority will now review both applications one more time at a special meeting to be held in two weeks. Hausladen said that the group will select a winner among the two finalists at that special meeting.

Theater Across From Bowtie?

Before the meeting adjourned, Buster floated an idea that would result in both finalists’ venue pitches becoming realities downtown, even after this specific selection process has picked one proposal for the Crown Street Garage commercial space.

Buster suggested that the parking authority look into whether it has any other available ground-floor commercial space at one of its other downtown garages, like, for example, the stretch of retail storefronts at the bottom of the Temple Street Garage that runs from Crown Street to M.L.K. Boulevard. One suggestion was to put the theater consortium’s various spaces in the storefronts facing the Criterion Bow-Tie Cinemas.